How a fear of failure will help you enhance conversion optimisation
A recent item in The London Times discussed the issue of excellence and how fear of failure plays a significant role in driving elite athletes to perform at the very highest level. What is interesting is that the fear in question doesn’t drive them to run away from failure, more to understand it, learn from it and make the necessary changes to improve. Their excellence comes from a dedication to optimising on an ongoing basis and the parallels with business are manifold.
Understanding where conversion optimisation is failing
Winning the online conversion optimisation war is now about fine tuning. Rather like elite sport, where 100th of a second can be the difference between success and failure, fine tuning user journeys and wringing the last drop of opportunity from them can be the difference between abandonment and an order. To understand where to drive these micro improvements you need to understand what isn’t working as well as it could; you need to understand and be open minded to failure.
Embracing fear is easier said than done. I have known of website managers of large, blue-chip organisations, listed on various financial markets that were wrongly reporting website performance because they had found out the metrics they were using were wrong but were fearful of telling senior management for fear of reprisals. Similarly I have heard all types of designers from graphic to user experience arguing why what they did was correct in the face of strong evidence to the contrary.
Understanding where conversion optimisation is failing
There are a number of methods for understanding where the opportunities for improvement exist and here are a few worth considering:
- Web analytics: daily analysis of drop off through the user journey can identify micros conversion optimisation opportunities
- Usability testing: perhaps the toughest to take, but letting real users loose on your website is the best way to identify where you can improve
- Online user research: similar to usability testing but with the quantifiable element of web analytics online user research is a great way of optimising conversion
To operate at the highest level you have to understand where the opportunities for improvement exist. If you can’t face your failure and learn from it you cannot achieve excellence because there will always be something left on the table. And rather like in the world of sport, the digital performance is there for all to see and so sooner or later you are going to be found out.
Face your fears and enhance conversion optimisation. Contact UX24/7 today.
